Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 214, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 September 1911 — The Boy Pubble [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Boy Pubble

By DR.J.S.KIRTLEY

THE BOY WONDER

▲ boy vender may still be found, bere and there, but 1 am not bringing a charge to that effect against any boy of my acquaintance. There hare been such in the past, there will be in the future, and ve have heard of a few, now living, though it Is not likely that the charge could be sustained, to every instance. We can never forget Watt, whose genius showed itself, when he watched the steam lift the lid of his mother's tea kettle; nor John Stuart Mill, who was thinking through philosophical problems, and in technical language, long before he reached his, teens. Pope said: “1 lisped in numbers, for thp numbers came,” even though some now think he never did anything but lisp, except limp. The tate John Fisk was a good Greek and Latin and philosophical scholar, before" the average boy of that age had learned his grammar. Students of music can never forget how the boy, Handel, stole into the chape l in the dark' played the organ till they were attracted from all over the estate of the duke of Saxe-Weissenfels and all thought it must be an angel and the duke pronounced him a genius; nor forget how Wolfgang Mozart was playing tunes at four, and did not have an equal on the harpsichord at twelve, Josef Hoffman was the wonderful boy pianist a few years ago. and now has made good as a man. In the line of music, early genlui has been brilliant, but almost as much ao, in literature. Pope wrote his “Od« to Silence” at 11, and “Ode to Soli tude” at 12. At 12 Macaulay won fame, by bis first volume. Cowley wrote “Pyrimas and Thisbe” at 12. At 16 Tasso wrote “Rinaldo," Hugo printed a volume of poems and so did Chatterton. Shelley wrote “Queen Mab” and Disraeli “Vivian Gray” at 18. Dickens was made'famous by his “Sketches” and Byron by his “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers” at 21. And there have been “Boy Orators" and “Boy Preachers” and “Boy Business Men.” Ne one denies that there have been and still will be bqy geniuses. Little William James Sidis has dazzled the wise men of the east with his conversations and writings and addresses on philosophical and mathematical subjects, and he will soon know all that Harvard can teach him, while Nicholas Wiener is treating Cornell to the same sort of a sensation. Alexander Hamilton pomes In that class. In a few months after arriving in New York from his native West Indies, to attend King’s he had studied out the question of the right of our country to and, in a patriotic meeting, in the open field, came forward and electrt-

fled the audience with a great speech, and he whs only 17. The late President Harper of the University of Chicago was such a bonder as a grown man that we forget his remarkable boyhood. Not every boy, considered a genius by his admiring relatives. 1b one. He may be precocious, good and proper, but not a genius. But suppose there Is a real boy genius at large In your community, what then? It brings up the old question: “Why should the spirit of mortal be proud?” His spirit or that of his kindred? Who knows but It may be only a case of infantile or puerile genius which will disappear ‘as the. years go? Neither, he nor his friends should ever forget that, try as he may, he may be distanced by some whose powers do not develop as I fast as his. There are men-wonders | whose boyhood was not unusual. WagI ner and Bach and Goldsmith and Cow- | per and Franklin and Darwin and Defoe and De Morgan belong to the latter class. ! And there are some alarming possibilities before him. Genius is not insanity, as some of the wranglers have claimed; nor is it abnormal, save that it is unusual, nor what is called a “sport” One may be what we often call a “universal Genius,” like Goethe, or Michael Angelo, or Gladstone, or ! Shakespeare. And yet he is apt to be | one sided and have some serious defects, which will prove his undoing, as a defect in will or judgment or sympathy or in power of concentration, and the latter was the defect of ColHe may be repressed and Aeglected. He may be led to think that he does not need training nor discipline, for genius is never independent of such things and it takes hard work to mature and bring .it to the fulfillment of its bright promise. The delicate nerve tissues may be burnt out before he reaches the more seri- , ous work of his life and he be left in the condition of the man whose legs 1 were set akimbo and he explained his ‘ misfortune: “I rode up in a balloon one time and walked back.” j If, on careful examination, the- boy is proven to be a genius, keep it to yourself and never allow him to suspect it. If he should find it out, tell him of the fall of the genius and \ linger over its harrowing details till he 1b almost scared out of Us wits; then put him at hard work as if his ' life depended on it. Make him play with the other £oys, so that they can keep the conceit out of him. Be /his master and his adviser and keep heavy responsibilities from him till he gets beyond the most dangerous point You may save him, after all.

HIS SPORTS

Hlb sports are the most serious thing in his early life; the funnier and louder they are, the more serious. They rank* with the solemnities and, if they are at all what they ought to be, their value is beyond calculation. Physically, he is adapted to sport and then, developed by It. His growing muscles and bones and his unstable nervous system require play. He has several million neurons already and each one is jumping—all of them in different directions. “Can’t you keep still?” asks the impatient mother, when she ought to know from memory that he cannot He is manufacturing energy so fast it must be taken care of, and play is the very way nature has devised for that. Play gives each muscle and neuron a chance and train them all to work together, But the chief value of play Js not physical; it is mental and ethical and social and emotional. It shows what is in a boy; helps to correct fclmf then discovers great truths and principles to him. He expresses all of himself in pU|y. The psychical as well as physical fceeks that form of expression. He expresses his emotions first in foodgetting; next In play. His whole mind gets into It. Imitation and imagination; reason and religion; love and hate; courage and comradeship—all are there. From seven to thirteen he learns to co-ordinate motion and emotion.

He learns law, net alone the laws of the came, but the great law of cause and effect. He learns, perforce, to respect the rights of others. Team work establishes social fellowship. He learns to accept defeat cheerfully and get ready for the next opportunity. Defeats are turned into achievements and obstacles into opportunities, by such a spirt. The skill which the game requires he always acquiree, training all his powers to help each other, like soldiers in a well-drilled army. Here, then, a;e three great qualities* disciplined by his sports—fairness, pluck and skill. Into the gaining of them go self-control, especially the control-of the temper, defiance of temptation, the altruistic sentiments of comradeship, self-confi-dence and obedience. As a baby, his play developed his muscles; next, his skill; then from twelve on, It trained the will power and the social sentiments. Nature has graded the school Just right. As the spirit of oomradeshlp rises In him. ho enjoys his fellow players as wen as the play Itself, sometimes more.

Boni play and talk are natural and pleasing to him, while work and conversation are artificial and irksome. Both have to be acquired and sometimes he never succeeds in completely mastering them. But he learns them both ehsily and eagerly when they can be put into the form of play. Most boyhood tasks .can be dramatized. Trimming the lawn or cutting wood or carrying in coal can be made competitive and thereby playful. History can be dramatized, especially where it involves war and heroic adventure. Impersonating Indians or any other of the attractive characters is always a pleasure to him. Apparently he is learning mostly how to wrangle and yell and charge his Opponents with being unfair, and is cultivating a narrow class spirit as fast as possible. But something very encouraging is going on. He is learning loyalty, not to hlmfeelf alone, Jjut to his causa, and each year his, cause is growing larger, till, by and by, he will Identify himself with the cause of man as such, he will be loyal. Obedience to the laws <of the game is embryo obedience to the laws of the state and the laws of life. It is even claimed that the aesthetic and artistic sense is developed in play. Play is constructive unless it is brutal. Progress is sometimes an anticlimax —quarterback, halfback, fullback, hunchback, the latter for life. But grace and rhythm of motion, balance and proportion at schemes, courtesy and klndnesß to team work—these can grow out of well-played games. In these games, constructed for ths times, he is growing out of ths crude into the arts of civilization.

There is peculiar power In each boy to adopt a hobby and thus prepare himself, through the combination of work and play, for his own proper vocation. From fiddling to photography, from gardening to farming, from dramatic reading to writing storlea, from raising pups and rabbits to running cattle and sheep ranches—such Is often the course. To his parents or guardians, greeting: 1. Cooperate with nature in letting him play all he can. 2. Give the play Instinct expression in sports, that develop cleanness, comradeship, courage and Conscience. 3. Turn the play into service, by turning servfde into play. <4. Find his special aptitudes sad la. them follow that 11ns toward his vocation.